


A Winter's Tale

by nirejseki, robininthelabyrinth (nirejseki)



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Domestic, Earth-2 Mayor Leonard Snart, Fae & Fairies, Fix-It of Sorts, Gotham, Heist, Kidnapping, M/M, Magic, Metahumans, Multiverse, Road Trips, Seventh Son Mick Rory, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-20
Updated: 2018-12-27
Packaged: 2019-09-23 12:44:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 14,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17080559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nirejseki/pseuds/nirejseki, https://archiveofourown.org/users/nirejseki/pseuds/robininthelabyrinth
Summary: Mick Rory is on a mission to save his family, and if it means kidnapping Mayor Leonard Snart, so be it.Though he's not expecting it to go like this.(Dragons and Faeries and Metas - oh my!)





	1. Hostage / Kidnapping + Soulmates (+ Fireworks)

**Author's Note:**

> For the coldwave winter week, a fic that is entirely out of order for the prompts because I decided to write the prompts as an "and" not an "or". Because I like to punish myself. 
> 
> Chapter 1: Hostage / Kidnapping + Soulmates (+ Fireworks)

"This is a mistake," the mayor says quietly, his hands up in the air as if he were warding away some ill-will rather than surrendering the way he should given that Mick's gun is in his face. He’s still calm, gun or no gun, almost resigned – if anything, he seems even calmer now than he had when Mick observed him earlier, fussing about some stupid paperwork that needed to get done.

It’s unnerving. 

It’s not _right_.

Sure, from what Mick’s heard about the guy and what he’s seen, the man’s a damn fine politico, but Mick’s dealt with guys like that before. First ones to go for power, first ones to crack under pressure – what’s the use of political power if it can’t save your life from the guy wielding a gun at you? – that’s the way it usually goes. 

But this guy? He's not nearly as scared as he ought to be.

He’s unarmed, he’s unprepared, he’s alone - Mick planned this carefully: everyone else is at the holiday celebration out on the lawn beside the mayor's residence, with speeches and cocktails and fireworks to come later in the evening, but the mayor had a tendency to duck out of these sort of events early and come back to his office alone.

And yet –

The guy's not scared.

Not _really_. Concerned, maybe; a little depressed and resigned, in the way he has been the last few days...but not _scared_.

But then, it's not like he doesn't have a point.

"You bet it is," Mick says grimly. "But it's happening anyway."

The mayor arches an eyebrow. "You know it, then?"

"Yeah," Mick says. "Trust me, I’ve only been here a few weeks and even I can tell that you're the only thing holding this city together anymore. Civil war’s just around the block and if I had any other choice, I’d leave you to your business and wish you well.”

“But you don’t,” the mayor says, frowning at him thoughtfully.

His steady gaze makes Mick feel weird and itchy. His left eye twitches.

It’s not a good thing when that happens, so Mick tries to stop it.

He doesn’t have time for that magic shit right now.

“Duress of some sort, clearly,” the mayor muses. The fancy legal words don’t sit right on his tongue, not with that backstreets slum accent of his. “Not bribery – blackmail..? No. They took someone you love.”

Smart guy.

“My motives don’t matter,” Mick says. “The end result’s what matters.”

“Why not try to get them back? If you want, I can –“

“You can’t.”

The mayor arches his eyebrows. “Ain’t sure if you’ve heard of this,” he drawls. “But I’m _real_ good.”

No shit. 

Like Mick said, he’s only been here for a few weeks, but he’d have to be an idiot not to be aware of that. 

Hell, it’s practically the guy’s tagline. 

Mayor Leonard Snart: the Man with the Plan. 

From what Mick’s heard, he’s earned it, too. It wasn’t all that long ago that Snart was nothing more than a thief, a slum-born kid out of the depths of Central City with a rap sheet longer than your arm; then he decided to go legit and now he’s the city’s mayor, with people already talking about prospects for governor or senator or even more. 

If anyone can come up with a way to solve Mick's problem, it'd be this guy.

But no one can.

"Sorry," Mick says, his lips twisting into a grimace. He'd love a solution to this that didn't involve fucking this guy over, but not even the Man with the Plan can fix the mountain of trouble Mick's in. "This problem's out of your reach."

"Outta mine," Mayor Snart echoes, his eyes narrowing. "Mine, but maybe not - yours. Where are you from?"

Mick's head jerks back. It's a damn good question, but there's no way for this guy to have figured it out.

Even if he's every bit as good as Mick's heard, there's _no way_.

"You said you've only been 'here' a few weeks, but your accent - though old - says farm some miles outta Keystone," Snart continues. "The Gem Cities are close enough that a native of one thinks of themselves as a native of the other, so there's no reason for a Keystone boy to say he's new to the area, no matter how long he's been outta town. Which means when you say 'here', you mean _here_ \- not this city, this _universe_."

Mick stares at him.

No way.

No way this guy just _figured it out_.

Okay, screw everything; Mick's gotta know if this guy's on the up-and-up or if he's made a worse mistake than he realized. 

Mick closes his twitchy left eye, hard, and as always it's the wash of relief that comes when he opens it twice over that reminds him he shouldn't be doing this crap, that this is the stuff that got him into the mess in the first place.

He's not sure what he's expecting to See - a lower Fae trickster of some sort, maybe a leprechaun or a striga or something, or even one of the High Sidhe slumming it. Sure, he hadn’t seen any sign of the Fae in this world and it supposedly weighed really heavy on the tech side of the scale as opposed to the magic side (or the merged-between-the-two side), which the Fae tended not to like, but – surely…?

But no.

This guy’s human.

Absolutely straight-up fucking human. Mick’d think he was being enchanted, but Mick’s Sight doesn’t get deceived; that’s part of why the Fae hate him so much. So when he Sees human, that means human.

And the means…what the _fuck_ even. 

“Okay,” Mick says, still suspicious. “How the hell do you know that?”

“Luck,” Snart says bluntly. “We had some issues with universe breachers from the universe next over, back when Zoom was our biggest problem.”

He's telling the truth.

His words shine gold in Mick's Sight, not a hint of a lie or concealment, but even without that confirmation, Mick's pretty sure he's heard all he ever wants to hear about that whole mess, even after only a few weeks. 

Zoom.

The super-speedster sociopath killer on the loose that'd created such a crisis of leadership that no one would step up to take charge, not until Snart started doing it with each step planned out so carefully in advance that he managed to stay one step ahead – even ahead of a speedster. 

They'd elected Snart for real at some point in the process, and now here he was, doing good, right up until Mick arrived to mess it all up for him.

Just the way he always does.

"So you're from another universe," Snart continues, interrupting Mick's inconvenient flash of guilt. "And you cased out this place for a few weeks - whoever's got you doing this is targeting me in specific, then? Why? What did I do?"

"It's nothing you've done," Mick says, because all the talking in the world isn't going to change what he has to do but the least he can do is give this guy the benefit of an explanation. "Not about you at all. It's - it's me. It's all because of me."

Snart frowns. "How d'you mean?"

"I got in trouble with some People -" He'd had the ill luck to be born a proper Seventh Son, that's what it was, really, and that meant the Fae were onto him long before he realized that using his Sight and all its benefits was only getting him deeper and deeper into a world of words and that he _sucked_ at words. "- the ones who took my family, and if I want to get them back, I need to collect a list of ingredients personalized to me for them to do some sorta spell."

A horrible world-ending bastard sort of spell, too. It wasn't even really a spell anymore - the power it drew on was too great to be kept in potentia. It was now a giant living mass of magic, voracious for the remaining pieces of the spell and vicious if denied; a great glowing ball of swirling blue that destroyed everything that got too close.

Mick knew what a spell like that was meant to do, too. A spell like that, built of blood and magic and sacrifice, was meant to destroy to the great gateway to oblivion that the great human sorcerer Tam Lin had bound the Fae to all those centuries ago to ensure that humans would have a chance to prosper free of Fae dominion. With the gateway gone, the Fae would be free to take over the world once more.

A terrible fate, but Mick wasn't going to trade his family for anything, not even his world. He'd take them and run, instead. 

"A spell..? No, that's not important. You said the ingredients had to be personalized to you - but we've never met before. We're not even from the same universe!"

Mick's pretty impressed by how casually the guy accepts the whole magic thing, since he's pretty sure this is a tech-dominant universe and that they don't believe in magic here. Hopefully that means he'll accept the next part, too.

"I know," Mick says. "That was the problem. See, I - you - _we_ are soulmates."

Snart blinks owlishly at him.

Yeah, Mick figured that one might be a step too far. 

"On every world in the multiverse where there's a you and there's a me, they're - we're - destined to meet and be important to each other," Mick explains. "Don't look at me like that, I thought it was crap when I first heard it, too, but I've been through a dozen universes and it was true in each one. Best friends, lovers, spouses, sworn nemeses, partners - adjoining tectonic plates -"

"Adjoining _what_ now?"

"They manifested as dragons, I don't know, it was a whole _thing_ and I didn't stay there long. Anyway, not the point. The point is, I'm one of the unlucky ones, 'cause the Snart in my universe kicked it before we ever met."

Mick can see the moment that Snart gets it. 

"So without one of your own…you're taking me 'cause I'm one of the unlucky ones, too, aren’t you? No living Leonard Snart in your world, no - sorry, what's your name?"

"Nice try," Mick says automatically, then flushes. "Sorry, instinct. You don't tell people your full name in my universe without some protection first. But since I know you're human...Mick Rory."

Snart nods thoughtfully. "There was a Mick Rory in my world," he says. "'bout my age. Died as a teenager, saving his whole town from a freak wildfire that got unexpectedly large all of a sudden - just kept running into the flames again and again, until he'd gotten as many out as he could. Papers covered the story for a while, 'specially since he'd been considered a no-good troublemaker before that. It was - inspiring."

Mick's heart gives a bit of a wrench at that. He's a pyromaniac - all Mick Rorys seem to be, even if some of them get more help than others - and he wonders if this version of himself started the fire that ultimately killed him.

"The fire," he finds himself asking. "Natural, or...?"

"Spread from the next county over by the wind," Snart confirms, and Mick's shoulders loosen in relief. "Trust me, that was part of the story - pyromaniac saves people from fire." He smiles a little, looking nostalgic. "Lot of the coverage I got for myself when I wanted to go legit was drawn from that story. 'Thief Steals Victory', that sorta thing - people love a funny coincidence, and it gets them to talk about something a lot longer."

"My Snart was my year-group's tribute," Mick says suddenly. He'd known that fact for years - remembered the name and cursed the coincidence when he'd found out about his current task - but it hadn't meant as much as it did now that he'd actually met the kid's doppelganger and realized how much that sacrifice had cost him. "The sacrifice to the People...he manipulated his contract, too. Better than a lawyer could. His mom and sister got guaranteed good health in exchange for his abusive dad getting fed to the Hunt, and the rest of us got immunity, real immunity, for three times the usual period. Got us all through our stupid teen years - even after we were fair game again, we still have highest survival rate in decades. He tricked 'em but good."

He hadn't thought about that kid in - forever.

Maybe he should've. It was that blessing that saved Mick's family from the fire he’d set by accident from following a will-o-wisp’s ball lightning to places he oughtn’t – immunity is immunity, a Fae’s promise is a promise, and the flames that would’ve killed them all turned into spirit flames that couldn’t harm humans. 

Sure, it burned down the house, but they lived when they would have otherwise have died. 

Leonard Snart saved Mick’s family.

And now Mick's going after the same person (a universe removed) to save them again.

Yeah, that's just the sort of irony the Fae love to screw people with.

Mick swallows. "He was a good kid. Would've been a good adult."

Would've been _Mick's_ , maybe.

They really are soulmates. No way Mick would be hesitating this long if they weren't.

Snart smiles crookedly as if he knows what Mick's thinking. "Regretting it now, ain't you? Me, I mean."

"Regret, yes," Mick says, because there's no harm in admitting it. "Not the coming here and meeting you bit. You seem like a good guy."

"The kidnapping bit?"

"The kidnapping bit," Mick agrees. "But I've still gotta do it. It's my _family_."

"I get that," Snart says. "That's why I'm going to come with you."

Mick blinks at him.

"Voluntarily, I mean," Snart clarifies. He looks - happy, somehow. Less stressed than he had been before, even though Mick's still got that gun in his face. "You say these People can get tricked, right? I'm very good at tricking people, and I really like tricking them who deserve to be tricked. I'm sure we'll figure it out, if we put our heads together."

Together.

The thing is, if Mick'd shut down his Sight, he'd think this was just Snart bullshitting him, trying to buy time.

But he hasn't, and Snart isn't.

Snart really means what he's saying. Not just conning-people meaning it, where you’re telling part of the truth or tricking yourself into believing what you’re saying just for a little – Mick’s Sight would catch that. No, he really means it.

He wants to help.

"Why would I agree to that?" Mick asks.

"Because you don't want to kill me."

"Well - yeah," Mick says, because weirdly enough, it's true. "But why would _you_ agree to it? You don't - the end result of this kidnapping is that I feed you into the People's spell, which may or may not be a living eldritch monstrosity!"

Snart blinks a bit at that, then shrugs. "Well, I ain't agreeing to _that_ , obviously. I'm agreeing to go with you to find another solution. One where everyone wins. Or at least, you and me do, which is what I care about."

"But - you - _why_? Even just that! Agreeing to help me means leaving all you've got here behind...you're the _mayor_ here, with responsibilities and everything - the city's heading towards civil war!"

"It is," Snart agrees. "And as much as I hate the idea, it's going to get it, too. It's going to get exactly what it's asking for, and pay the price for that."

Mick stares at him, utterly bewildered.

Snart all of a sudden reaches out and plucks the gun out of Mick's hand, but he doesn't aim it back at Mick or call the guards or anything like Mick's suddenly expecting him to. He just puts it on the desk like it's a sheet of paper that got misplaced, like it's just interfering with their pleasant little chat. 

"Don't get me wrong," Snart says. He's looking at Mick, his eyes intense. "I love my city. I love my city so damn much. Wouldn't have gone up against Zoom if I hadn't - could've just left like the rest of 'em. But Zoom was only the start of it. Now we've got Jessie Quick as our city savior, backed to the hilt by Harry fucking Wells. And I can't save our city from that."

"From Quick?" Mick asks. He's only been in this universe for a bit, but from what he'd understood - "The _hero_?"

"Judge, jury and executioner," Snart says. "Meta-detecting watches now send out alerts; next thing you know Quick's at the scene to take care of the issue - no matter what the meta's doing, no matter how innocent. I slapped Quick with a lawsuit over arresting - assaulting _then_ arresting - some kid who was just out for coffee, didn't even realize he was a meta until someone's watch went off. Might not have even been a meta that morning, even. Wells didn't like that, though, not to his precious perfect daughter, so he opened up his wallet and poured money into a campaign to pass anti-meta legislation retroactively justifying everything Quick's done."

"That's crap."

"I'm Jewish," Snart says. He's still calm, still controlled, but that just makes it even more noticeable that he's furious. "And Black. I won't stand by and let them make any sort of person illegal just for being born a certain way, no matter what they are or what powers they might have; I know where that goes. Told my legislature that they could have me or the laws - and just today, they decided."

Mick gets it. "They passed the laws? But - don't metas make up some ten, fifteen percent of this city's population?"

"They do. And sympathizers even more."

"Then, why..?"

"Money talks, and Harry Wells is a short-sighted idiot," Snart says with a shrug. "At this point, the stuff I'd have to do to stop this war, I ain't willing to do. Didn't think I had any other options, though - I don't wanna be a politico anywhere other than Central, it'd be in bad taste to go back to being a thief now, and I'm too famous to just retire. No other options...till you walked in the door."

Mick swallows. "You'll really help me fix this? For real?"

"For real," Snart says, and offers Mick a hand. "What do you say? Partners?"

"Partners," Mick agrees.

Outside the window, the fireworks start.


	2. Heist / Job / Undercover + On the Run / Roadtrip (+ Carols + Northern Lights)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2: Heist / Job / Undercover + On the Run / Roadtrip (+ Carols + Northern Lights)

Snart sings in the car.

This wouldn't be so much of an issue, really, but he sings badly. _Really_ badly. 

It's not even that his voice is bad - it isn't, it's a nice mellow baritone - it's the fact that he switches songs halfway through on a regular basis and substitutes "da dah da" noises whenever he forgets the words. 

Which is often. 

"I should've shot you," Mick marvels.

"You're the one who demanded that I entertain you," Snart says cheerfully. He knows Mick doesn't mean it. "Are you not entertained?"

They've known each other less than the week it took Snart to arrange all his life to be left behind, and Snart already knows Mick doesn't mean it. Knows it enough to be smug and irritating and tease him, based on no magic at all - and even after Mick explained how seventh sons like him are targets for Fae mischief such that those around them invariably suffer.

Snart just shrugged and said he'd take his chances anyway.

Mick's never liked anyone so quickly and totally before.

He really hopes Snart's crazy plan works and they've able to save his family, 'cause his Ma's gonna flip out about her baby boy finally finding the One.

Still, being in love is no reason for Mick to stop being a jerk. Especially since Snart seems to like it.

"No," Mick says. "I'm not entertained. I'm _annoyed_. Sing something else.”

“Well, I know some Christmas carols.”

“…really? Why? Thought you were Jewish.”

“I am. You hear ‘em on the radio often enough, though…”

“Which means you don’t actually know them,” Mick concludes. “You just half-ass know them, just like everything else. Seriously, do you know the complete lyrics to any song? Any song at all?"

"Hmm. _There were ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall_ -"

"Not that one."

"Hey, the lyrics could be different between our universes -"

"That line only works _once_ , asshole."

Snart laughs.

Mick can't help but smile. He can't help but be happy when Snart is happy.

Hell, that's probably the only reason Snart's here with him. 

Oh, Snart agreed to go to help save Mick's family from the Fae that took them, to come up with a plan to stop them from whatever their undoubtedly disastrous plan was, and he meant it, too. But he couldn't leave his city behind - leave his _universe_ behind - without saying goodbye to his sister, and if she'd refused to give her blessing, Mick knows that Snart wouldn't have gone.

But she had.

("I've never seen him happier," she whispered in Mick's ear. "You better take care of him.")

"Look on the bright side," Snart says, interrupting Mick's musings. "If our plan doesn't work, you still get to feed me to an eldritch monster."

"And then you'll sing that song at _it_ instead of me," Mick shoots back. He's stopped wincing when Snart brings that up, probably because Snart brings it up so often. Which probably is _why_ Snart brings it up so often.

Mick almost regrets telling Snart about how the Fae manipulate words and emotions as easy as breathing, since all it's gotten is Snart's attempt to armor him emotionally and puns. 

So very, _very_ many puns. 

Still, much to his surprise, Mick hasn't actually started regretting this whole adventure yet.

(Clearly, the soulmate thing is like a tranq for your common sense.)

"That might work," Snart muses. "You never know. Maybe eldritch monsters are sensitive to terrible singing."

"Snart," Mick says, long-suffering. "New subject."

"So when do I get to rob a bank?" Snart asks.

Mick rolls his eyes. He should've known. Snart doesn't ask 'are we there yet', he asks about robbing a bank. You can take the man outta thieving but you can't take the thief out of a man...probably why he was such a good politico.

"How many times do I gotta tell you," he says. "It's not a bank."

"Bank, dragon den, same thing, really."

It really isn't. 

Honestly, Mick's not even sure how he got talked into robbing a dragon den as part of Snart's plan.

Okay, maybe it was because he mentioned that dragon-fire (whether raw or crystalized) is one of the only surefire ways to fight against Fae magic. 

And maybe that story has it that there was a spear made out of the crystalized form of the stuff, kept in pride of place in the center of the dragons' meeting-place.

And maybe also that threatening the life of the Fae that took Mick's family is probably the only way he's going to get the guy to come to the table to renegotiate...

Okay, Mick sees how they got there. 

And, hey, from Snart's perspective, is there really that much a difference from being eaten by dragons mid-heist and being slowly fed to a terrible eldritch monster?

Hmm. That doesn't bode well for Mick's chances of surviving this heist. 

"You're taking this whole 'magic exists' thing really well, you know," he says instead of thinking about it. " _Too_ well."

"I like stealing things more than I like worrying about little things like the rules of physics," Snart says, utterly unphased by the accusation. "Stealing things is fun. Why do you think I ran for mayor?"

"Exaggerated civic duty."

"Ouch."

"And I'm serious about the dragon thing, you know."

"Oh, I believe you," Snart assures him. "Wouldn't humor you if I didn't. It's just hard to be scared of dragons when you're driving through the corn fields of Kansas. Even in the dark."

Mick snorts.

Okay, he'll give Snart that. He's never seen corn fields this - quiet.

"Do you really not have corn wolves here?" he asks. "Field-spirits?"

"Nope."

"Creatures made of corn to steal children?"

"We've got tractors?"

Mick shakes his head. Sad. Very sad. 

"I hear they're mildly intimidating when you're not expecting them to be there," Snart says, sounding amused. "Or at least that's what I'm told. I was born in a city, okay?"

"A city boy as a soulmate," Mick sighs. "Ma'll never forgive me. Well, the passage is going to be just past the next turn, and then you get to plan out your dragon heist. Just remember -"

"Don't tell anyone my full name, don't thank anybody, think about every possible meaning of something before you agree to anything, and keep a hand on the nail you gave me in case I need to fight. That about it?"

"...yeah."

Maybe Mick'd repeated those warnings a few more times than he thought he had. 

"Holy _crap_ ," Snart adds conversationally, so casual that Mick takes a minute to realize what he's said. "Are those the northern lights?" 

"Yup."

"In _Kansas_?"

"Breach between the universes," Mick says with a shrug.

"They don't look like that when they're created by machine. Or by speedsters."

"My world ain't big on either of those. I had to get - creative."

"Creative."

Mick shrugs. Maybe, if he's lucky, Snart won't ask.

"Define creative."

Damnit.

"It's a magic thing," he tries.

Snart looks unimpressed. "Is related to your squint powers?"

" _Squint powers?!_ "

"You said you see things differently -"

"I See things! See! As in all that third eye, clairvoyance, Fae-detecting bullshit! How'd you get _squinting power_ out of that?"

"In my defense, you squint when you use it."

"I _blink twice_. It ain’t squinting."

"Mm. Sure. It just strongly resembles it, s'all; no other relation. Anyway, your 'creativity' related to that or not?"

Mick really wants to stay on the subject of how he _totally_ does not squint when he activates his Sight - which he almost never does so it's irrelevant anyway - but at the same time he never wants to talk about it again.

"Sort of," he says. "I used my Sight to find the Book of Brigid."

Please let them have some sort of technological version of that in Snart's world so that Mick doesn't have to explain.

"What's that?"

Mick has no luck today.

"I'll tell you later," he says hastily. "We're about to pass through the barrier. Prepare yourself for dragons!"


	3. Inside Mick’s Novel + Mobsters / Crime Noir (+ Mistletoe)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 3: Inside Mick’s Novel + Mobsters / Crime Noir (+ Mistletoe)

"I can't believe the car flies," Snart says, peering out the window over the canyon they’re soaring over. 

"It opens dimensional portals," Mick points out. "And you're impressed that it _flies_?"

Snart shrugs, continuing to inspect the car. "Yeah," he says after a while. "I don't know shit about dimensional breaches. But I know a bit about aerodynamics, and this car ain't got shit."

"You're thinking too small, Snart," Mick says. "This is a world with magic."

Snart looks skeptical.

He's...not wrong.

“I think part of the problem,” Snart says thoughtfully, “is that I can’t really imagine anyone bothering to put in all the work and risk all the danger you’re always telling me about magic to enchant an old convertible Honda Civic.”

“Hey, it’s the best type of car!”

“No. It ain’t.”

“…it’s a _decent_ type of car.”

Snart snorts. "Still no."

“I have good memories of this type of car.”

“I’ll allow that,” Snart says. “How’d you get her?”

Mick pauses.

“Oh, now I’m going to press,” Snart says. “Any time you pause, it’s you hoping you can lie to me or evade the subject, and it never works. Just tell me now.”

Mick makes a face at him.

“Soulmates,” Snart reminds him. “I won’t mock you. Much.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Really! At most I’ll just tease you about it on every anniversary we have for the next twenty years. At _most_.”

Twenty years of anniversaries.

That…doesn’t sound too bad.

Mick kinda likes the idea of this guy sticking around for twenty years.

“Well,” Snart muses, “I’ll either tease you about it or about the fact that you wouldn’t tell me about it…”

Mick rolls his eyes. "Okay, remember what I said about using my Sight to find the Book of Brigid?"

"Given that you said it only about twenty minutes ago, and I ain’t a goldfish? Yeah, I remember. What is that? The Book? Some magic thing?"

"You could say that."

"You wanna say _more_ than that?"

Mick winces. "It's a magic book that incarnates stuff that you write in it."

Snart is quiet for a long moment. 

Mick braces himself. The Book of Brigid may not be as infamous in Snart’s world as it is here, but Snart’s an intelligent guy – and perhaps more importantly, a _guy_ – and there’s only one place his brain’s gonna jump.

"So," Snart drawls, his eyes delighted, "if you were to write porn -"

Yep. There he goes. 

“It requires creativity to function! You can’t just write a list of instructions or something. It’s got to be _artistic_.”

“So, what, you wrote erotica?”

"I wrote a _romance_ ," Mick says with dignity he totally doesn’t have. "Science fiction. Garima was the Queen of an alien planet and had samurai fighting powers."

"Samurai don't have powers."

"On _your_ world, maybe."

Snart considers that, then shrugs in acceptance. "Alien, huh," he says. "If I promise not to judge, would you tell me if she had any, uh, _special_ -"

"Three tits."

Snart presses his lips together.

"You said you wouldn't judge!"

"I said _if_. But as it happens, I can't blame you for giving a book like that a shot, and at least you did something interesting with it. Three tits is a good start. I’d be more disappointed if you’d just gone for something totally vanilla, like a secretary willing to bang you or something."

"S'not like the stuff the book creates lasts," Mick says, still embarrassed. Though at least Snart likes his creativity – that’s a positive sign. "Otherwise I would've just written me some loot or something."

Snart smirks. "Do I get a turn with the book?"

"Depends. You a creative type? Writer, artist, playwright..?"

Snart frowns. "I'm...really good at drawing blueprints?"

“Not quite what I meant,” Mick says, rolling his eyes. "But hey, if I ever need a temporary house built, I'm coming to you."

"I'm better at banks. Anyway, what's the point of building a house that doesn't last?"

"Dunno. Trap?"

"Hmm. Not a bad idea. So what's this book got to do with your flying, universe-hopping car...wait. _No_."

Mick grins. "Yep."

"You _didn't_."

"I did," Mick confirms, reaching out to pat the dashboard of his wonderful flying car fondly. "Meet Garima, in her newest incarnation."

The car purrs at him.

Snart bursts out laughing.

Mick can't really blame him.

"We're -" Snart chokes. "You telling me we're _inside_ -"

He loses it again.

Mick smirks. 

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up," he says, unable to keep from smiling at Snart's irrepressible mirth. "You won't be laughing when we're dealing with dragons."

"If I can deal with a real life Chitty Chitty Bang Bang - emphasis on the _bang bang_ , if you get my drift -"

Okay, that's enough to get Mick to start laughing, too.

"- then I think I can handle some measly dragons!"

"You'll need to stop sniggering if we're gonna make it in," Mick warns.

"I'll sober up in time to help us sneak in," Snart says, wiping his eyes. "I promise."

Actually, getting into the dragon meeting-hall is the easy part.

Even with Snart stopping to stare in awe at the dragons every five seconds. Not that Mick can blame him: dragons are majestic beings, with bodies the size of a moose and then wings and tails besides. Some of them even breathe fire.

They're also remarkably indifferent to humans wandering through their halls, but Mick's pretty sure that's only because they're a bit iffy on telling humans apart and don't want to accuse one of their own servants of being an intruder.

Dragons _hate_ being embarrassed.

Unfortunately, that also means that they won't take being the victim of a theft lightly, so they're going to have to be careful, cautious, and -

"Are you staring _again_?" Mick hisses. "Snart, the dragons haven't changed! Get your head together and start planning!"

"I will, I will," Snart says. His voice is oddly strangled - more like he's trying not to laugh than the wonder that he'd had at first. "It ain't that. It's just - are - do dragons _always_ talk like that?"

Mick frowns. He hadn't noticed anything unusual - the dragons, talking amongst themselves, just sounded like dragons always did. "Talk like what?"

" _You know_."

"If I knew, I wouldn't be asking, would I?"

Snart waves his hands as if that'll explain everything. "Like," he hesitates. "Well, like they've just escaped a Gotham gangster movie."

Mick scowls at him. "None of those words made sense."

"I don't know how else to explain it," Snart says defensively. "It's like they stepped out of the 30s or whatever. Prohibition-era, rum-running, gangster molls, the whole lot of 'em..."

"Snart. Not helping."

Snart sighs. "Yeah, I can tell. Does the accent at least match your Gotham?"

"...what's Gotham?"

Snart's eyes go wide. "Oh. _Oh_. This _is_ your Gotham, ain't it?"

"You're talking nonsense."

"No, this is great," Snart says. "It makes no sense, but if it's true...tell me, is there a particularly wealthy dragon -"

"They're _dragons_. They sleep on gold and complain of poverty while they do it."

"Well, maybe gold isn't a valuable measure of currency for them," Snart says dismissively, like it hadn't taken humans an unreasonable number of generations to puzzle that out. "But I mean - _especially_ wealthy, even among dragons. Indulge me; I'm testing out a theory."

"There's a few," Mick says. He has no idea where Snart is going with this. "Among the entirety of dragonkind? Or just local?"

"Local."

Mick thinks about it. "Uh," he says. "One by the name of Wayne, I guess?"

"I _knew_ it!"

"Shhh!"

Snart shuts up and they continue walking through the hallways. The dragons might be oblivious, but they're not stupid. 

"Why do you care, anyway?" Mick asks. "Wayne's a ditz, even for a dragon. Inherited his hoard from his parents."

Snart's eyes are bright with amusement. "I suppose that depends on whether this place has a bat problem."

"A what? No, wait, shit -"

It's too late. One of the dragons walking by has, for some reason, started to turn towards them - a fairly involved endeavor, but one that didn't take as much time as Mick would've preferred.

"What do you know about bats?" the dragon - a female, from the tone of her high-pitched, nasal voice, though who is Mick to know how dragons do gender? - asks. "You got something to say?"

"Depends," Snart drawls, his own voice suddenly gone nasal as well. "You got a name, doll?"

The dragon -

Giggles.

What in the name of fuck...?

"You're funny," she says. "I'm Harley."

Snart puts a hand to his chest. "Not Harley Quinn? I'm honored."

The dragon blinks. "You've _heard_ of me?"

Now it's Mick's turn to blink. How could Snart've heard of the name of a dragon in a totally different universe?

"Oh, sure," Snart says. "Tough as nails and twice as funny, just like a harlequin play...you with Ivy now?"

Now the dragon _really_ looks shocked. "You know _Ivy_?"

"I'm in the know."

"Clearly! Who youse got squealing to ya, anyway? Tell me!"

"Oh, you get to know all sorts of people and find out all sorts of interesting things in my line of work," Snart says vaguely. "Pass along a kiss under the mistletoe to Ivy, will you? Courtesy of my employer."

"Your _employer_. Ooooooh, you gotta tell me!”

"I ain't saying nothing," Snart says. "But if a wink'll do you -" He taps the side of his nose for some reason. "- then you might think of someone cold and squawky."

"Oswald!" the dragon - Harley, apparently? - squeals. "Oh, that's rich. What's he want?"

"Dunno," Snart says. "Something about some sorta spear or shit? Heavily guarded."

"The Spear of Destiny? Why's he want that?"

"New centerpiece?"

The dragon snorts fire when she laughs. "For the Iceberg Club? He _would_! Alright, c'mon, let's go get it for ya. If Ozzie wants to ask for trouble, he's welcome to it - Bats can handle retrieval, and we’ll all laugh it up."

"You're the best," Snart says, very sincerely.

Mick checks - for about the fifth time - to make _absolutely_ sure the guy's a human.

They're walking out with the spear less than twenty minutes later.

"Snart," Mick says, then stops. Where does he even _start_?

"Gotham," Snart says with satisfaction, as if that means anything. "I'm a Central City boy born and bred, but every criminal knows the basic rules of play for Gotham."

"What _is_ Gotham?" Mick demands.

"In my world? A city. A corrupt, stinking cesspit of a city, where everyone who ain't a supervillain knows what's what and those that are? Well, they’re are crazier than a crapload of cuckoos, and I’m pretty sure it’s just intentional blindness."

Mick shakes his head. "You're telling me you know the human equivalent of all those dragons?"

"Yup."

“…they really must be crazy.”

“No kidding.”

"Still…you were able to manipulate 'em all based on just what you knew about their personalities in your universe? How'd you know they’d still be the same? Especially since they’re dragons here!"

"Lucky guess."

Mick's eyebrows arch. He's not using his Sight right now, but the frequency of Snart's "lucky" guesses is starting to become a bit suspicious. 

He opens his mouth to ask when Snart's own eyebrows suddenly go up.

"I suggest we hurry without looking like we're hurrying," he says.

"Why?" Mick asks, subtly speeding up already.

"See that dragon?" Snart asks, nodding at a short but unusually rotund dragon waddling towards the main hall with a small entourage of dragons and humans trailing behind him. "If I had to guess just based on looks, that's probably this world’s Oswald."

"...the guy you said sent us to get the spear?"

"Yeah. And Harley's gonna ask him about it when she sees him."

"And then she'll get embarrassed and swear vengeance on us. Great."

"Harley Quinn doesn't get embarrassed," Snart says. "She finds things funny. But, uh, just in case -"

"Race you to the car?"

"Right."


	4. Gods / Myths & Legends + Fake Marriage / Pretend Relationship (+ winter traditions (bells))

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 4: Gods / Myths & Legends + Fake Marriage / Pretend Relationship (+ winter traditions (bells))

"I can't believe that worked," Mick says, laughing as they take off in Garima, soaring away from the dragons even as the hall behind him begins to release smoke in a way that suggests that a pair of dragons (or more) have started arguing very loudly and in a way that suggests fire. "I literally can't believe that actually worked, you psycho."

"Man with a plan," Snart reminds him, but he's also grinning. "Though I must admit that one was particularly fun -"

"Oh, come on," Mick scoffs. "There's no way you _planned_ that."

"It's all in how you define 'plan', Mick." Snart's voice is warm. "I've got, let's say, a _unique_ definition."

"Yeah? Well, I'm listening."

"Step one: make the plan," Snart says, raising a finger. "Step two: put the plan into action. Step three: watch the plan go off the rails. Step four: throw away the plan."

Mick blinks. "That's..."

"Terrible advice?"

" _Horrible_ advice! Why not make a plan that works the _first_ time?"

Snart laughs. "Famous saying in my world," he says. "'No plan survives contact with the enemy.' Way I see it, there's two type of people making plans: spies and generals. A spy's got no choice but to be right the first time, 'cause they're fighting the truth. If they ain't right, they have to abandon their objective in order to save their cover - mission failure. But a general? You're fighting _people_ , and people are weird and unpredictable, which means you _know_ your plan's gonna go to shit when it hits reality. And if you know that, you're already prepping all sorts of other plans - including plans that are mostly improv."

"Like what you just did," Mick says thoughtfully. "When'd you start thinking of yourself as a general? As a mayor, sure, but as a _thief_...wouldn't you be more of a spy type?"

Snart makes a face. "You'd think so. But from a pretty young age, I was stuck working on crews that weren't that good. So I had to make _lots_ of plans that assumed failure."

Given what Mick figures he knows about Snart's family life, that makes sense. 

"So what you're saying," he says with a smirk, "is that you're as good as you are 'cause of practice?"

Oddly enough, that just makes Snart go serious. "No, not just practice," he says. "There's something I oughta tell you -"

There's a terrible clanging noise in the air.

_Shit_.

"Not now," Mick says, suddenly grim, feeling fear pool in his belly. "We need to get to ground. _Now_ , before the sound stops."

"What _is_ that racket?" Snart hisses, his hands on his ears.

"Bells," Mick tells him. "The People's arrival is heralded by bells."

When they're being sneaky, that can be a tinkle of small bells, barely distinguishable from the wind. But if they're not hiding themselves...

People who aren't familiar with the Fae, and even in Mick's world there are far too many of those, tend to hear that and think of the harmonious bells they know: church bells, or carolers, or even lone charity-workers standing on the street with pots for people to throw in coins. 

The Fae, though?

The Fae aren't like humans. 

Why should their idea of bells be any more human than they?

A thousand bells all at once, small and large and even gigantic - sound suggesting that you were inside the bell - with no order at all, one starting one stopping one ringing one tinkling one roaring -

Cacophony.

And the Fae like it that way.

"Why are the People _here_?" Snart asks. "I thought you said this was dragon territory -" 

"It is, and I said the People generally don't like it. _Generally_. C'mon, Garima, hurry! I can smell the ozone!"

You don't want to be off of solid ground when the People are in the area. You _especially_ don't want to be in the air.

The Fae are a little too fond of lightning.

"I thought you said you didn't have speedsters in this world!" Snart hisses.

"We _don't_ -"

The world rips apart, and one of the People steps through, shaking out the sparks left over from the Underhill, their other world where no human could understand -

It's not just one of the People.

It's him.

The one who took Mick's family and set an impossible quest as the price to get them back, and all because Mick unwisely used his Sight to see the grotesque scar that rent the otherwise immaculate Fae's face in half. 

"What are you doing here?" Mick growls. "I ain't done collecting your stupid shit yet."

The Fae smiles. 

"No need to be rude," he says, his voice a pleasant trill of a tenor. He always sounds so gentle, and it's all a lie. "You should remember your manners. Just so: it is a pleasure to see you again."

He bows.

Mick scowls at him. "The feeling's not mutual."

"And a pleasure to meet you, as well," the Fae continues, inclining his head at Snart. "And your name is..?"

"Already known to you, if you're the one who gave my friend here his quest," Snart drawls, as craftily as any native. "But since we're being polite, what's yours?"

The Fae looks taken aback by that - or at least manipulates his face to mimic that expression - but Snart doesn't retract the question.

"That is a dangerous question to ask of one of my kind," the Fae says after a long moment, eyes slanting towards Mick as if offering him the opportunity to warn Snart of the risk he's taking.

The Fae can't be bound by giving their names to mortals, but that doesn't mean they like doing it. It pisses them off.

Mick crosses his arms instead. He _should've_ warned Snart about it, yes, but he didn't, and showing weakness before the Fae is worse than any other consequences that might result.

"You asked for my name, and know it," Snart says. "I asked for yours, and I ain't got nothing yet." 

"Unbalanced," Mick comments, clicking his tongue in disapproval even as his heart races. If this works, they'll have an advantage over the Fae, the ability to summon him, but he'll also target them -

Not that it matters, given that he already has Mick's family.

"You may call me Savitar," the Fae finally admits, caught in the politeness trap of his own making. His eyes glitter with anger. "And I come with a gift."

Mick tenses.

"I hereby cancel the rest of your debt, Seventh Son," Savitar declares. "What parts of the quest you have accomplished are enough; you may rest satisfied."

Mick freezes. If the quest is done - and Snart was part of that quest - they're not going to have time to think of a plan; the Fae will feed him straight to the spell and he'll be dead, dead at Mick's hands -

"You're so kind," Snart says, batting his eyelashes. "And us just at the start of the honeymoon, too."

Savitar blinks.

This time he really does appear to be taken aback, rather than merely mocking them with it.

Mick desperately wants to react the same way, but tries not to make any gesture or expression.

What honeymoon?!

There isn’t any, of course. They’re not married.

But –

There’s no way for Savitar to know that.

This might actually work.

"You - married?" Savitar asks.

"We're soulmates," Snart points out. That's true, but neither confirms nor denies the point.

Savitar looks thoughtful.

"You like politeness, don't you?" Mick says gruffly. He has no choice but to back Snart's play, and it's a lot better than the unthinking panic that had been his first reaction. "Well, interrupting's rude. You wouldn't want to get a _reputation_ for being rude and interrupting a honeymoon, would you? "

"I would not," Savitar murmurs. His eyes crackle with white electricity, a sign of temper for the Fae. They've gotten to him - first his name, then this...Mick feels like he shouldn't be surprised by this, given that he's been rambling on about them all day and giving Snart time to plan, but seriously, Snart is really good at fucking over Fae.

Even when they pull one of their nasty surprises, like this one.

Mick grits his teeth. A surprise, yes, but only to him. He has no doubt that this was planned all along - and that a soulmate, willingly sacrificed, was the only ingredient they really needed from him.

Which means he's been running around for the rest of the items for no fucking reason.

Snart's shoulder brushes Mick's, helping him keep his temper.

They're both watching the thinking Fae, who nods, as if deciding something.

"Well played," he says, looking as if he's swallowing glass to have to say it - but the Fae are fair, in their own strange way, and Mick knows he has to acknowledge it when he's lost. "I have no means to check what you did in that foreign land, and to question your answer is to breach the rules of etiquette...very well played."

He bares his teeth into a smile, then, each one sharpened to needlepoint. 

Shit.

"In that case, then," Savitar says, his eyes still crackling, "I will not interrupt your month, which is yours to treasure. And I cannot and will not retract my gift, which stands: your quest is over. And, to be _polite_ , I invite you to my realm, to spend the rest of your honey-moon. And when the month is over, we may - proceed."

Mick wants to swear, but doesn't dare.

The Underhill. Savitar's going to take them to the Underhill, that strange and unnatural land of the Fae, and he's going to wait out the month Snart won for them, and then he's going to hurt them both.

Any plan they make will have to be made right under his nose.

Still - one month's repreive is better than nothing. 

Snart glances at Mick, question in his eyes. 

Mick nods, reluctantly. Snart did good, getting them the extra time, but there's no way to get around the Fae's little "invitation". 

They have the spear.

They have a month.

Now to hope that that's enough...


	5. Supernatural Beings + Alternate Earth / Doppelgängers (+ hot chocolate)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 5: Supernatural Beings + Alternate Earth / Doppelgängers (+ hot chocolate)

"This place gives me the creeps," Snart says. 

Mick can't blame him. 

Underhill is - unreal.

_Viscerally_ unreal.

Oh, it looks a bit like the human land above - quite a bit, really, a perfect replica of a small suburban town, in this instance. Green lawns, white houses, patios, even small touches like toys abandoned outside or bowls half-filled with water and dog food sitting next to a little flap.

Only there's no people.

And it all feels wrong.

Everything's wrong. 

The lack of people - the lack of sound, natural or man-made - the lack of any smell that you would expect, no exhaust or cut grass - the oppressive, claustrophobic feeling of the air - the sky that seems blue on first glance, but on closer look shimmers like a coat of paint applied to a whirlwind -

All wrong.

Even the perfect mimickry of a town is wrong. The houses aren't built at the right angle - just a touch off, in a way that defies gravity and physics as humans know them - and even the materials used in them aren't textured right. Too smooth when it should be uneven, uneven where it should be smooth.

Worst of all, Mick knows that if he turns on his Sight, all of this would dissolve into the nothingness that it really is.

The hidden whirlwind that just barely peeks through the sky? 

That's _everything_. 

Oh, the Fae can shape the stuff as they like, to build anything they can dream of, but in the end it's all just wind, biting and cutting and moving too fast.

There's a reason the stories warn people not to eat the food created by the Fae.

"Is that a comment on my home?" Savitar asks, smiling. He's the one who set the rules to be politeness, the etiquette that the Fae so care about, and he's dying to catch them in a mistake.

"An observation," Snart drawls. "Meant with the full sincerity of my heart."

Savitar looks amused despite himself. "You're clever," he says begrudgingly. "I see why destiny wove the two of you together - his power to back your schemes, his faithfulness to assuage your instinct towards loneliness, his practicality to keep you grounded."

...Mick thinks he might've just been complimented. 

In an extremely backhand way, by the Fae that's trying to destroy the world and using Mick's love for his family to do it.

Which means, of course, that at some point in this process, Savitar has gone from seeing Mick as a pathetic pawn or bug to be crushed underfoot - the way they see most humans - to seeing him as an honorable opponent worthy of respect.

Which probably just means he's going to be even nastier than usual.

Ugh, Fae. They're so damn weird.

"Grounded," Snart murmurs, his tone oddly distant. " _Grounded_. Yes. Yes, that makes sense."

Mick glances sidelong at him. It sounds like Snart's just figured something out.

Savitar is also watching him, eyes narrow; he's noticed it, too.

Snart shakes his head, then turns to Savitar with a smirk cold and sharp enough to match one of the Fae. 

"I don't mean to get distracted," he says. "It's just, you see, I was wondering where I'd seen this place before."

What the fuck?!

"Before," Savitar echoes. He was suddenly very, very still.

A predator, wondering if he's misjudged his prey.

Snart doesn't look like he's bluffing, either. The fake marriage thing, that was a brilliant stroke because Savitar couldn't call them out on it. The only people who know for sure what happened in the other world are Mick and Snart, and obviously Mick's not going to contradict him.

It was a desperate gamble, a bid for time, because they need time to think of a way out of this mess.

This, though?

This is a new play.

Snart's up to something.

Which means - 

Snart has a plan.

(Seriously, how does this guy _do_ it?)

“Oh, yes,” Snart says blithely. “As you know, my soulmate here came to a different world to find me; things are different there. But some things – well. Some things stay the same.”

_You don’t have Fae in your world!_ Mick feels like shouting. _And Savitar knows it!_

But he's not going to say anything. He's going to back Snart's play.

“Of course, it wasn’t done up nearly so pretty,” Snart continues. “That’s why it took me so long to notice that I’ve been here – or somewhere like here – before. I remember it more as…well.” He grins. “Streaks of light.”

Savitar is very still, but his eyes are crackling more than before.

Snart’s not a Seventh Son. He doesn’t have Sight. Mick’s not good enough to hide his expressions, so Savitar knows he hadn’t prepped Snart about this ahead of time. In short, there is no way in the world that Snart should be able to know what this place is really like –

Not unless he’s telling the truth, and he's actually been here before.

In another universe.

Now, this wouldn’t be doing such a good job of knocking Savitar out of his cool, but he’s obviously been watching them. He wouldn’t have appeared right after they escaped the dragons with his little “gift” if he hadn’t been concerned about their acquisition of the spear, and he wouldn’t have been concerned if he hadn’t spied on them.

That means he knows that Snart just manipulated the dragons by knowing stuff about the Gotham in his world. Manipulated them nice and easy and almost effortlessly. 

And if Snart's been to the Underhill before, then that means he might know stuff about the people who live Underhill.

People like Savitar.

Obviously, Savitar doesn’t like the sound of that. 

“But what can you do, right?” Snart says with an airy shrug. “Human eyes. Anyway, where did you say you were going to take us?”

“He hadn’t,” Mick says cautiously. 

“Well, then,” Snart says. “Since our host hasn’t chosen the destination – why don’t you?”

Oh, Snart’s _good_.

“How about where my family is?” Mick suggests. “That seems like it’d be nice and comfortable, since it's already set up to host humans - and presumably feed 'em with non-Underhill food, too.”

“An excellent suggestion,” Snart says. “Don’t you agree - _Savitar_?”

Just a little reminder that Snart’s gotten Savitar’s name, but hasn’t given out his own.

“I had planned to give you your own property here –” Savitar starts.

“No need!” Mick says brightly. “You’re so kind, really, but we’re not complicated people. With my family will be just fine.”

Savitar glares, but it’s half-hearted; he’s still unnerved by Snart’s little play.

Mick can't blame him; he's a little weirded out himself.

He is not going to be sympathetic to the Fae that took his family, though. Savitar's nervous? Good.

“Very well,” Savitar says after a long moment, and the world changes around them. It’s just another neighborhood, still the creepy not-right suburbia, but the house they’re in front of has the lights on, and there are sounds coming out like there really are people inside. “You may stay here for the month that is your honey-moon.”

Mick nods and grabs Snart’s arm to remind him not to say ‘thanks’ or anything foolish like that.

Snart nods slightly, acknowledging Mick, but his eyes are still fixed on Savitar. He’s not done yet.

Mick just hopes he knows what he’s doing.

“I’m sure we’d invite you in,” Snart says, quiet and intent. “But I know you have important things to get back to –”

Savitar arches an eyebrow, smirking – and no wonder, since Snart’s given him the perfect opening to invite himself into the house, just by denying that he has other business – but Snart’s smirking, too.

“– or, rather, important people,” Snart finishes before Savitar can say anything. “Pass along a hello from me, will you?”

Savitar freezes again. 

This time, though, he’s not unnerved.

He’s _furious_.

“To – who?” he asks.

Snart flashes a fake smile at him and slips a hand through Mick’s arm, looping them together. “Oh, you know,” he says. “You don’t have to play games here; I know exactly what you feel. She’s ever so charming, isn’t she, the one who _grounds_ you the way Mick does for me?”

That’s a strange emphasis, but Savitar’s face has twisted with a myriad of emotions Mick can’t even begin to understand, and the next thing he knows, there’s a clash of discordant bells and Savitar is gone.

Gone!

Mick checks with his Sight, but it’s true: Savitar isn’t hiding somewhere, he’s actually left them alone.

Mick hadn’t even dared to hope for as much. 

“Holy crap,” he says, nudging Snart. “Well done.”

Snart grins at him. “Couldn’t have done it without all your explanations about what the People are like. I knew it sounded familiar!”

“Your world doesn’t have Fae, though,” Mick objects. Might as well use the word, since they’re already Underhill – it’s only in the human world where you’re afraid of getting their attention. Here, there's so many of them, it's impossible to avoid. 

“Nope,” Snart says. “But we _do_ have speedsters, and the world next door to us has some, too. I keep a close eye on what Harry Wells is up to, and he in turn keeps an eye on his cross-universe friends – they mentioned a Savitar at one point. I just hadn’t remembered until he said that bit about grounding. And then I remembered.”

“What’s that got to do with it, though? And why did he leave?”

“He’s got a girl,” Snart says. “Or he doesn’t; it really depends. He either wants to love her or to kill her, but either way he likes to call her his lightning rod. And that seems to be true in both my world and the one next door, which - given what you've told me about soulmates - suggests that she's his soulmate, just as you are mine.”

“Lightning rod...? Grounding. Right. Shit, that makes so much sense – Tam Lin put a spell on the Fae in our word, a great gateway that forces them to be tied to the Underhill, to keep them from dominating humans. If the Fae are the alternates of speedsters…”

“The spell must keep them stuck,” Snart agrees. “Zoom was powerful. He took over my city by himself – he might've even been successful in going further, if he'd tried and if he wasn’t interested in keeping just to my city. But you have a lot of Fae, not just one. They’d’ve taken over the whole world, easy.”

“No kidding.”

“Underhill must be your version of the Speed Force,” Snart continues. “I only caught a glimpse of it once – Zoom grabbed me for a run at one point, which was terrifying even though I had a plan to deal with it – but I put two and two together. Your world is magic, mine is tech; you have Fae and mages, we have speedsters and metas.”

“You put together all that on the fly?”

“I told you,” Snart says with a grin. “Plans can be made impromptu, too.”

Mick snorts. “What’s with you and plans, anyway?”

Snart coughs. “S’what I was gonna tell you earlier,” he says, a touch apologetically. “I ain’t just good at them. I’m _real_ good at them.”

Mick blinks at him.

“I’m a meta.”

A metahuman, which Snart had equated to their world’s mages…

Okay?

Did he think Mick would care or something?

“What’s your specialization?” Mick asks with a shrug. “You’re not a speedster, and your fondness for cold puns aside, you haven’t done anything frosty yet.”

“I like being called Mayor Cold,” Snart grumbles. “They even adapted the Mister Cold Miser song at one point –”

“Snart.”

“…right. Well, you know what it is, actually. It’s my rep.”

Snart’s rep? Snart’s only rep on his world was –

“The Man with the Plan,” Mick says, marveling. “Your meta power is _making plans_?!”

Snart grins at him. “I told you I could make something.”

“How can that be a meta power?” Mick demands. “It’s just – _everyone_ makes plans! You just need working brain cells and a little bit of logic!”

“Yeah, but I see how they plans are going to work out,” Snart says. “I think of an idea, it folds out ahead of me – I can see a bit of how it goes. Not everything, of course; I ain’t seeing the future. Or at least, I don’t think I am. But I get insights as to how things will work out, and how I need to play it to make it come out the way I want.”

That’s a pretty awesome power. 

“That’s how you figured out that I wasn’t from your universe, isn’t it? I knew you couldn’t’ve just used logic to get there!”

Snart grins.

“So that means you’ve come up with a plan to save your ass?” Mick asks hopefully. “And my family?”

“Not yet,” Snart says ruefully. “It’s a meta power, not magic – I still have to think of the idea first. But once I get the right idea, it’ll work. And we’re getting closer, too; the power comes with a sort of intuition for things. Things that I’m going to need later on. The spear, that’s good. We need that. Getting to be with your family’s gonna help, too. There _is_ a plan that could get us out of this. I just haven’t figured it out yet. But I will.”

Mick – believes him.

Mick really believes him. His heart hurts at the sheer amount of joy it has, hope rekindled.

He wants to kiss Snart.

“Yeah, well,” he says gruffly instead, climbing out of Garima, which is now dutifully parked in the driveway. “Come inside and have some hot chocolate.”

“With mini marshmallows?” Snart asks, looking delighted.

Mick rolls his eyes. “Yeah, sure,” he says fondly. “You can have your chunks of sugar with a bit of hot chocolate to moisten ‘em.”

“You know me so well already…”


	6. Metahumans!Coldwave + Sick!fic / Slice of life / Domestic (+ Holiday Sweaters)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 6: Metahumans!Coldwave + Sick!fic / Slice of life / Domestic (+ Holiday Sweaters)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay - I was travelling with my family and couldn't get to my computer at a reasonable time.

"You didn't say there would be so many of them," Snart hisses.

Mick looks at him, bemused. "Why are you freaking out?" he asks, uncurling Snart's fingers from his shirt. Snart'd just up and yanked him into a broom closet, which was just going to give people ideas.

Ideas Mick wouldn't mind them having, as it happens, though he figures he ought to clear the issue with Snart first.

Snart mutely and rather frantically gestures at the door.

"What, you worried about a crowd? You used to be a mayor; you must've dealt with crowds -"

"They're not just a crowd!" Snart hisses. "They're your _family_!"

"...yeah?"

"I ain't good at conning this many people on a one-on-one basis! Not without prep!"

"Right," Mick says. "I - don't follow. Why would you need to con 'em?"

"So they'll like me, obviously," Snart says. "I thought it'd be, like, a parent or two. Maybe a sibling or two, like Lisa. I didn't..."

Ohhhhhh. Now Mick gets the issue. 

"Snart," he says as gently as he can while trying to choke down laughter. "Did you think 'seventh son' was metaphorical or something?"

"There are _more than seven_!"

"Well, yeah," Mick says, losing the fight and starting to laugh. "I'm just the seventh; nothing said they had to stop there. And most of 'em aren't my siblings, they're my nieces and nephews and cousins. Mostly cousins."

Snart flails.

"I'm a seventh son," Mick sniggers. "The seventh son of a seventh son - or, well, seventh daughter, in my ma's case. Supposedly grandad's generation was also more than seven..."

"You're insane. All of you. You could field an army with just your blood relatives!"

"Probably," Mick agrees. "We're Irish, Snart. We like having big families."

"Doesn't it _hurt_?!"

"Pain never stopped an Irish woman from getting what she wanted," Mick informs him. "Best learn that now: it'll make your assimilation into the family easier."

"I'm a Jew," Snart grumbles. "We don't assimilate easy. There’s a whole holiday about it."

"Yeah, yeah, tell it to the Borg outside."

"You call your family the Borg?"

"We have a tendency to adopt people in addition to the ones we have," Mick says with a shrug. "If anything, there's some even I haven't met yet."

"And Savitar took _all_ of 'em?"

"Yup."

"...I hope carrying 'em all here gave him a backache."

Mick's laughter comes from his belly, and he only stops because he needs air. 

"C'mon," he says, patting Snart on the shoulder. "I'll protect you, you big baby. How is it that the Fae don't scare you, but my family does?"

"Yeah, well, unlike the Fae, I actually respect the opinion of your family."

Mick is charmed. "You realize you pulling me in here is gonna make them think we're knocking boots, right?"

"That make 'em more or less likely to attack like a swarm of piranhas?" 

Snart is focused on the wrong issue here.

"They won't eat you either way," Mick says. "Don't worry. But - uh - what's your opinion on the idea itself?"

"About..? Oh, us? Yes, it's fine if they think it; I've got plans to make it a reality soon as we get some breathing room. But that’s for later. Right now, I don't want a hundred shovel talks!"

"You and your plans," Mick says, unable to keep from beaming. "You were ever gonna tell me about the whole you and me thing, or was I just gonna find out on our wedding day?"

"Need to know basis, Mick," Snart sniffs. "You'd know when you needed to know. And anyway, ain't like you object to the idea...do you?"

"Nah, glad we're on the same page," Mick says. "Though, if you want to avoid the shovel talks..."

"Yeah?"

"I've got some ideas about camouflage."

Snart looks like it physically pains him to put on the garish holiday sweater Mick gives him, even though Mick went to all the effort of finding one with a Hannukah theme instead of a Christmas one. 

But even he has to admit that once it's on, he gets a lot fewer stares of curiosity.

"Family's so large that everyone's started forgetting significant others," Mick informs him when he asks about it. "Not to mention people who've got informally adopted and shit. If you're blending, people're gonna start worrying that they got introduced to you last holiday and just forgot."

Snart snorts. "Camouflage is right. Now, c'mon, I wanna go charm your parents some more." 

"They already like you for being willing to put up with me, Snart, you don't need to worry..."

"I've never done the meet-the-parents routine before," Snart says firmly. "I'm gonna get this right."

Mick rolls his eyes fondly and follows him. If this is what Snart would rather do than make out in a broom closet, sure, whatever...

He nearly bumps into someone as he makes a detour to check on what sounded like an explosion but was actually just several under-ten children being true to themselves and putting lumps in the walls.

"You need a sweater?" he asks the girl with the punk haircut and the terrified-but-suppressing-it expression that was on Snart's face not ten minutes before. "You'll be a lot less noticeable that way."

"Oi, is that the purpose of the sweaters?" the girl mutters, blinking. "I knew the whole fam couldn't've turned out to be bleeding wankers -"

"Just around the holidays. Here, I've got an extra, if you don't mind the Hannukah theme."

"I don't mind," the girl says, accepting it and giving Mick a weird look. "I, uh..." She shakes her head. "I accept your gift."

Why would she say that?! And Underhill, no less -

Hmmm.

Mick blinks twice with his left eye. 

Yep.

"What's a Fae got to be scared of at one of my family's parties?" he asks, crossing his arms and scowling at her.

The girl stares at him, then suddenly looks deeply relieved. "You're the Son! Oh, bugger, I've been looking for you -"

"You...have?"

"You're the one with the obligation, yeah? To the lightning prince?"

"If you mean Savitar, then yeah."

"Sav- you got his _name_?!"

Mick arches his eyebrows at her. She looks impressed.

"Well, anyhow, I wanted to swear fealty and shit," she says. "S'why I'm here."

"To...swear fealty?" Mick asks, confused. "To who?"

She glares at him. "To you, you bleeding bint!"

"Why would you swear to -"

"Charlie, there you are!" another woman shouts, wiggling her way through the crowd. 

This one, at least, he recognizes.

"Zari, this one here's yours?" he asks, nodding at 'Charlie'.

"Yup," she says, eeling an arm around Charlie's waist. "Partner. You brought one too, haven't you?"

"Yeah, he's off trying to charm my parents - hold up, you're dating a _Fae_? Really, Zari?"

"Just a minor one! She's just a shapeshifter, not High Sidhe or anything."

Mick rolls his eyes.

"Anyway, she was set to guard us and now she's one of us," Zari says briskly. "She doesn't approve of cages, that helps. And she's really hot."

"I'm a shapeshifter," Charlie grumbles. "'course I'm hot."

“I meant on the inside.”

“That doesn’t even make any sense –”

“I’ll leave you to it,” Mick says hastily. 

Charlie scowls at him.

Mick rolls his eyes. “You wanna pledge fealty, you knock yourself out, but don't do it on my behalf. You’re with Zari, you’re part of the family, I’ll take care of you whether you’ve got fealty or not. Now, I’ve got a soulmate I need to make sure doesn’t get himself into trouble, if you don’t mind…”

He vaguely hears Charlie say something like “I thought you were having a laugh about ‘im being the real deal” and Zari saying “Nope, he’s always like that, aren’t you glad you joined our side?” as he makes his way into the crowd, but he’s also pretty sure he doesn’t want to know.

Being a seventh son is so much more trouble than it’s worth.

Also, he can’t find Snart.

Mick's not sure how that happened. He's an old veteran at navigating his family parties, and that's what this is - spurred on by a Fae kidnapping or not, everyone's here and that means it's a party. 

Which means that he should be able to find Snart faster than Snart could get lost.

Now, they're not in the room his parents had been in earlier. 

They're not in any of the downstairs rooms he checks, actually. And Mick knows better than to start checking the rooms upstairs without a good reason.

Not when he has other options.

His Sight isn't just useful for identifying Fae, after all.

Mick follows the aura trails that suggest Snart (a crisp blue with white around the edges), his ma (dark green shot through with gold) and his dad (crumpled yellow - still damaged from his PTSD and alcoholism, though Mick's pleased to see how much better he's doing). 

And he finds -

"What are they _doing_?" Mick hisses in his dad's ear. "Are they _crazy_?"

"Probably," Mick's dad agrees. His knuckles are white around the door, though, so he's not being facetious; he recognizes the stupidity of what Mick's mother and soulmate and - he checks - two cousins and an unrelated aunt are doing. 

They're playing Rummikube.

Stupid enough, to play games where chance is an element in the Underhill. But they didn't stop their foolishness there, no.

They're playing Rummikube -

_With Savitar_.

"How'd they even get him to sit down to the table?" Mick demands. He doesn't bother keeping his voice down: no one at the table can hear him, anyway. Standard anti-cheat measures, though of course if you're smart enough to get around it somehow you're good as golden...

Mick's dad makes a face. "Your soulmate suggested putting up stakes."

"So? Why would Savitar care about a little gambling...no. He didn't. Tell me he didn't!"

A nod. "He did."

"Tell me he just wagered the spear," Mick pleads. "And not - y'know - anything of his..."

"No, nothing of himself. No one's gotten a name out of him yet; you've trained him well."

"Less training, more lecturing," Mick says. "So what'd he wager? The spear?"

"The spear," Mick's dad confirms. "And - time."

"Time?"

"Pieces of the month you have left."

"You're fucking kidding me. What's he _thinking_?"

"I don't know," Mick's dad says with a helpless shrug. "I went to break up a fight in the next room and when I came back, he'd talked your ma into supporting him."

"Did he say anything else? Anything at all?"

"No," Mick's dad says. "Just -"

"Just what?"

"That he had a plan."


	7. Oculus Fix / Len Lives - 24th Dec + Christmas / Chanukah / Winter Holiday (+ New Year's Kiss)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 7: Oculus Fix / Len Lives - 24th Dec + Christmas / Chanukah / Winter Holiday (+ New Year's Kiss)

“Who needs an eldritch monstrosity spell or the Fae? _I'm_ gonna kill you."

"You're taking this too seriously," Snart says.

" _Too seriously?!_ You're gonna die!" Mick roars. "All because you fucking gambled and _lost_ -"

The game had, to put it politely, not gone Snart's way.

They'd played hard and fast and long, and in the end, to no one's (read: Mick) surprise, Savitar had emerged triumphant.

He won the dragon-fire spear, their only hope of fighting the Fae, and worse than that he'd won their time - virtually all of the month that Snart had bought them with his clever lies.

And with their time gone, Savitar meant for Snart to be sacrificed immediately.

"Sometimes a game is more about the play than the end result," Snart says. "Especially when you play with Central City rules."

Mick is going to strangle him.

"No, really!" Snart protests, undoubtedly in response to Mick's expression. "We played with favors and deals as part of play - you can sneak a peek at my tiles in exchange for one piece of my selection from yours, I'll put down half of a board if you put down the other half, I'll swap you one now if you swap me one later, that sorta thing -"

"Snart," Mick snarls. "I don't care about Rummikube."

Snart scowls. "Fine. Tell me more about this spell thing."

"You mean the giant eldritch monstrosity about to eat you -"

"Other than that."

"The Fae used to dominate the planet," Mick says. "They had all sorts of powers, which I guess is similar to what your world's speedsters had, and they used it to enslave humanity. Then the great sorcerer Tam Lin fell in love and fucked it up."

Snart frowns. "How's that? You didn't mention love before."

"Well, that's what happened. He fell in love with a Fae, a weaker one, and the only way they could be together was if humanity were free or something like that, I don't remember exactly. Either way, he came here on Midsummer's Day and set a spell locking the power of the Fae into the Underhill, keeping them from using all their powers and forcing them to stay there most of the time, and reinforced that spell with his love for his girl - maybe boy, maybe something else, I dunno, wasn't really paying attention - with his love for his _soulmate_ , anyway. And the spell gets stronger every time some pair of lovers plight their troth with his name, which of course everyone does. But if you want to break it, you need the exact opposite."

"Huh. So that's why they needed you to get me, I guess? The necessary ingredient being a soulmate willingly sacrificed?"

"A seventh son's soulmate, willingly sacrificed," Mick corrects. "Tam Lin was a seventh son, too, and it's Midwinter - best time of the year to defeat a spell set at Midsummer. Besides, that's just the last ingredient - they've been pulling pain and agony out of humans for decades to build the spell up as much as it is."

"Does it matter that you ain't really willing anymore?"

"No. I agreed to a deal and as long as they keep to their half, I can't weasel out. And that means they can do whatever the hell they want to you as long as my family gets out."

"And what they want is to feed me to this spell."

"Yeah," Mick says grimly. " _That_ spell."

He points.

The spell's even bigger than it was before: a glowing mass of blue light, snarled in on itself like a Gordian knot, pulsing with a hunger to consume and destroy. 

"Beautiful, isn't it?" Savitar comments, appearing by their side. He has the dragonfire spear in his hand, the asshole; he's just rubbing their loss into their faces now. "Enhancement spells built on enhancement spells - I wouldn't suggest casting a fireball anywhere near it, not if you wanted the city to remain intact."

"So it's the spell equivalent of a nuke," Snart says thoughtfully. 

"A spell that gives whatever spell you cast around it nuclear force," Savitar corrects, then smiles unpleasantly. "And the spell we're going to cast is going to be a good one. Midwinter betrayal will free us all from our chains."

"Speaking of betrayal," Snart drawls, "what exactly are the terms you set for Mick's deal? He just needed to get you your items, right? Minus the ones you forgave as a 'gift'?"

Savitar frowns, and Mick frowns, too. 

"That's right," he says, wondering where Snart was going with this.

"Well, then, he's done that," Snart says. "His family should be free to go already."

Mick turns to look at Savitar, who's gone from frowning to scowling, albeit with an expression that suggested that he was mildly impressed.

"You're good with words, for a human," he says.

"I used to be a politician," Snart explains. "You'd be amazed how well I eel through loopholes."

Savitar snorts, surprised into something almost human. "A _politician_. Really, seventh son? I would've thought you'd have better taste."

"So would I," Mick grumbles. 

Snart rolls his eyes at both of them. "Deal done, yes?"

"Yes," Savitar says. "They're free to go."

A weight lifts off Mick's shoulders.

"I'll do you one better," Snart says. "I'll go down to the spell willingly if you guarantee their safe passage."

Mick's spine stiffens. He hadn't thought about that.

"Why would I care if you go willing or not?" Savitar asks, arching his eyebrows and crossing his arms. "I could carry you there in less time than it takes to blink."

Now it's Mick's turn to roll his eyes. "Because with his way, you won't have to go anywhere near the spell," he says. "Do you think we haven't noticed that it's all alone there? I bet it doesn't like you Fae all that much."

Savitar looks mutinous for a moment, then the expression fades. "Very well," he says. "Your willingness to proceed in exchange for safe passage out of the Underhill."

"Mmm," Snart says. "Not what I said. For a Fae, you really ought to be more careful with your words. Thanks for agreeing, though."

Mick frowns. "What's the difference between what you said and what he said?"

"He said 'safe passage out of the Underhill'," Snart explains. "I, however, said 'safe passage' - without any limitations."

"I'm not protecting that many people indefinitely!" Savitar exclaims.

"You should've been more cautious, then."

Savitar glares. "No. Trade down, or I'll break contract and take whatever consequences fall out."

"Oh, all right," Snart sighs, all put-upon. "You give his family safe passage out of Underhill and, hmm, seven years and a day of immunity, and I get to take whatever I like with me."

"Safe passage out of Underhill, three years and a day of immunity, and you can take whatever's _yours_ with you. Best offer."

"Done."

Mick's head hurts. Also, Snart clearly took Mick's story about what his universe's doppelganger did far too much to heart.

Still, immunity for his family is good.

Just -

He wishes it didn't have to come at the expense of Snart's life. 

He _likes_ Snart. Even his ma likes Snart, and that's even after he finagled her into gambling against the Fae. 

(Mick's dad is a little more iffy, but that won't stand up against Ma's views for very long. Everyone knows where the real power in their family lies.)

"What do you want to take with you?" Savitar asks, amused again. Fae are changeable like that. "Decide now - your time is up."

Mick swallows. It's too soon - he's just found Snart; he doesn't want to lose him -

"Mick," Snart says.

Mick looks at him.

"Come with me."

"Are you _nuts_?" Mick exclaims. "What, and get myself killed for no reason?"

"Please, Mick. I have a plan -"

"Oh, yeah, like the old one worked so damn well!"

"Mick. Please. Trust me?"

Mick just met the guy. They're not even together, not really, they're just a _possibility_ , and so what if they're soulmates? Just because they affect each other doesn't mean they have to let it - 

Mick's a goddamn idiot.

"Fine," he growls, ignoring Savitar doing something judgy with his eyebrows. 

He grabs Snart's hand, and together, they go down to the spell.

"You take me to all the nicest places," Mick says as they draw near to the gigantic pulsing hunger of the spell. 

"Next time, I'll pick a nice restaurant instead."

"There won't _be_ a next time."

"No, there won't," Snart says. "Mick..."

"Yeah?"

"Thanks for trusting me."

Snart turns around and waves to Savitar. He's got a piece of white paper in his fingers. "Hey, you!" 

Savitar peers down at him.

"One of yours for one of mine!" Snart calls, which - what?

"Is that from your stupid Rummikube game?!" Mick exclaims, because seriously? _Now?_

"It is," Snart says. "We played Central City rules, where you can also trade favors. I didn't use 'em up all."

"But what's the point of bringing it here? Those apply to the game -"

"Says who? I've made political deals over a game of Rummikube. Why not magical deals, too?"

Mick starts to get a bad feeling about this. A feeling, it occurs to him, that he should've started getting way earlier.

Snart did say that he had a plan.

Mick really should've believed him.

Man with the fucking plan...

"What the hell are you trading him?" Mick demands.

Snart smiles at him. "A soulmate."

And then, with a tug, Mick's gone - 

He blinks.

He's standing at Savitar's side, all the way up the hill. 

"No!" he shouts.

Savitar stares at him, human disbelief bleeding into his face, and then he looks back down the hill.

Snart's still there, with the spell starting to reach out bright blue tendrils to grab him. By his side, there's a woman - dark hair, dark skin, and a very confused expression.

"Iris," Savitar breathes. The spell reaches out a tendril, and wraps around her, too. "No!"

He's gone.

No, not quite gone.

He's down the hill, speedster-quick, but the spell is closer and it realizes what Savitar is doing and it's lashing out to grab its victims first - Savitar is slowing - no, not slowing -

He's stopped, so as to better aim the spear that he throws.

The spear of dragonflame goes straight to the heart of a Fae spell.

Opposites meet.

Everything explodes.

When Mick finally manages to open his eyes again, he's lying on his back on the hill.

He sits up.

Snart is lying beside him, alive and intact, the bastard. And beside him, there's the woman - Iris? - sitting up and rubbing her eyes.

Mick suspects, but checks anyway.

Yeah, she's human.

"Hey there," he says. "Nice day, huh?"

"Is it winter?" she asks. "It's freezing."

Huh, yeah, she's wearing a summery blouse and not much else. 

Mick shrugs off his jacket and hands it over.

"Thanks."

"It's Midwinter," Mick says with a shrug. "Winter Solstice. Guess you were inside or something?"

"Not exactly," she says wryly. "Last I remember, it was summer, and I was walking in a park."

"Iris," Savitar rasps. He's standing right behind her. "Oh, _Iris_..."

She twists to look at him. "Barry," she says blankly. "What's wrong?"

(Barry? Savitar's True Name is _Barry_? Really?)

"You - you died -"

"You're dating a Fae?" Mick asks her, deciding that he didn't want to know. "And here I thought you had some sense."

"You don't pick your soulmate, and anyway he grows on you," Iris says wryly. "Also, Bar, what do you mean, I _died_?"

"Wouldn't have called that, I admit," Snart croaks, sitting up. "But I guess the swap spell didn't pay attention to where your soulmate was - and it was nuke-powered."

"Wait, what's this about nukes?!"

Mick looks down the hill, but the spell is gone. In its place, the barrier shines gold, strong and unwavering. 

A Fae and a human, soulmates, rescuing each other. Just like Tam Lin.

Instead of destroying Tam Lin's spell, they've strengthened it a thousand times over. 

Oh, the Fae aren't going to like this one bit.

Savitar doesn't look like he cares, though, with Iris in his arms and his head on her shoulder.

Snart pokes Mick in the shoulder.

Mick looks at him.

Snart mimes a hasty exit.

...yeah, good idea.

They sneak out of there.

To be fair, they could have probably have made a giant racket and no one would have noticed – Savitar and Iris appear to be having their New Years’ kiss a bit earlier than expected, but hey, Mick’s not going to look gift Fae in the mouth.

(Unlike Iris, apparently.)

The second Mick's pretty sure they're out of earshot, he whistles for Garima.

She comes, of course, lights flashing happily and doors sliding open.

"Good girl," Mick tells her. 

After all those dimensional portals, getting back Overhill is a cinch for her.

"So," Snart says.

Mick turns to look at him. 

Snart grins at him. "Restaurant?"

Mick starts laughing.


End file.
